Easton business owner issues high-stakes challenge to BSU students

The owner of an Easton sign company has challenged a pair of college students with an entrepreneurial spirit and fierce drive to succeed to prove they can run a business.

He set up a separate little sign company and is letting the best friends from Bridgewater and Raynham run it.

And at the end of one make-or-break year, he will either hand the business over to them as owners or they’ll go back to working for him.

“They have a year to prove themselves,” said Jim Haluch, owner of Signs By Tomorrow, a family-owned sign company in Easton.

How will he know if they’ve succeeded?

“It’s pretty easy. I just have to look at the checkbook,” Haluch said with a wry chuckle.

On the other side of this deal are Stephen Pace, 22, of Bridgewater, and his best friend Cam Dennis, 20, of Raynham.

Pace, a 2013 graduate of Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School, has worked for Haluch for five years and is engaged to his youngest daughter, Anna. Dennis is a 2015 graduate of Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School in Taunton.

Both Pace and Dennis attend Bridgewater State University majoring in business management.

But they’ve been getting an education of a different sort since January running “508 Signs,” the company Haluch will turn over to them if they succeed.

They do it all. Installing the signs. The marketing. The books.

Sometimes they feel like contestants in a reality TV show, they said.

“Honestly, we should have cameras on us all the time. You should see when Jim starts pressing us. He just shoots questions at you 24-7,” Pace said.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

They feel extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to own their own business at such a young age and they’re determined not to let Haluch down – or themselves.

“He’s always challenging us, in a good way. It makes us smarter,” Pace said.

Every time Haluch pushes them, they push themselves that much harder and get better at what they do, they said. And that’s what their year of “probation” is all about.

“I’m 22. He’s 20 and we’re out here trying to run a business. Not a lot of kids our age can even say that,” Pace said.

Pace and Dennis said the thing that appeals to them about owning their own business is the freedom - financial and otherwise.

They believe in hard work and they believe it pays off, they said.

“I’m not obsessed with money. If you work hard 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of it will work out for you. ‘Work hard. Play hard.’ That’s the phrase Jim’s always telling us,” Pace said.

“You’ll catch me Friday night through Sunday just enjoying the hell out of my weekend because that time comes few and far between,” Pace said.

But it’s not just about money. They’re not just killing time at work. It gives them a sense of accomplishment that makes down time that much sweeter.

“I feel I enjoy it more than your average Joe just because of how hard we work,” Pace said.

It doesn’t hurt that they’re working together. This reality TV show is also a buddy movie.

“The banter’s off the charts,” Dennis said.

They plan to be best friends and “business partners for life,” they said.

So, what’s their secret to working together and staying friends?

“That’s the challenge of working with your friends or family. You might butt heads, but you can’t take it home with you,” Dennis said.

“As soon as you clock out – say we had a crazy day full of drama – it’s all out the window. We forget about it all and pick up where we left off,” Pace said.

Apparently business smarts run in the Haluch family. Haluch issued a similar challenge to his daughter Anna, Pace’s fiancé, starting her off in her own business, Pro Sign Graphics of Mansfield. Pace said Anna, 22, quadrupled the size of the company in a year-and-a-half.

“I can’t even keep up with her. She is amazing,” Pace said.

Pace said those words from the driver’s seat of a Chevy van with a built-in bucket truck and the words “508 Signs” emblazoned on the side.